Mission Accomplished!

When The Paul started the Citizens Committee meeting Monday night, there were the usual faces in the audience. Also in attendance were those The Paul can count on to lob him softballs and non-question questions. This fact was reiterated throughout the meeting and highlighted by one woman who claimed, “We have to take personal responsibility when a storm in coming to be prepared. To do this,” she continued, “residents need to go to “ready.com” for a list of items one might need.” While not bad advice, it’s like watching the TV news before a storm or before a holiday. They’ll start broadcasting what you should do, not do, for how long, and so on for days on end only to see people demanding help because they didn’t heed the advice. 

For the uninitiated, this was strictly a ruse for the public. The Paul sent emails to his devoted followers to attend. And, attend they did. ABG assumes he prompted them to ask “his” questions, offer advice and of course, dish out compliments where “they” believed appropriate. His ploy worked so well, the room began to list as resident and non-resident alike stated that ConEd was the villain. It was working. Most in attendance ignored the obvious: The Paul did nothing to help before, during and after the storm - again! It was more of his standard operating procedure as The Paul got unencumbered publicity before his end of the month publicity quota expired. Frenzied reporters scrambled to get photos and names of speakers, already knowing their medium would simply use The Paul’s press release talking points for the bulk of their articles. In fact, they simply could leave early since they had all they needed before they got there!

As the constant campaigner, The Paul has developed his craft of subtle campaigning into a well-honed and revered art form. When he was awaiting the court’s verdict in the Fortress Bible case, he needed to deflect attention from his illegal actions and fast! Thankfully, the TappanZee Bridge had entered the campaign season from Obama and Cuomo and gave The Paul a deflection subject better than he could have imagine: save the old Tappan Zee Bridge as a park. He wasn’t the first person to come up with this. But since he has unfettered access to the media machine in Westchester, they gave him the platform he needed and led this rally for a short time until the governor trumped him and cast him aside. But the deflection was working.

The Paul and the Town of Greenburgh were found guilty, with the decision appealed and upheld in Appellate Court, of violating the Church’s first amendment rights of free speech, free assembly, equal protection, due process, and the Town had discriminated against the church under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act or RLUIPA. The judge cited the Town for “intentional delay, hostility and bias towards the Church's application.” This is a damning decision as to what’s wrong with and the lack of quality of leadership in the Town!

Thankfully, The Paul’s the Tappan Zee bridge emergency fiasco and gifted him the “out” he needed as he became the lead proponent of morphing of the current Tappan Zee bridge into a High Line Park, similar to what NYC did to a much-different and safer rail track in Manhattan’s west side. But the park wasn’t the issue. Deflection from the Fortress Bible decision was. ABG wonders why there isn’t outrage throughout the Town demanding the resignation of The Paul and his corrupt partner from that event, Councilwoman Diana Juettner? ABG believes he told her to keep her mouth shut and he’ll get her out of this. She obeyed.

The Citizen’s Committee would not have stopped the illegal actions of The Paul, Juettner and the other Board and various Department members who answer to The Paul of bad and illegal behavior. But The Paul certainly could have asked felon and fellow-schemer Alan Hochberg to investigate by forming a Citizen’s Committee subcommittee (as opposed to the faulty Ethics Committee) that could continue The Paul’s deflection toward another (mis)direction. Sure, there would be the questions and legal challenges from the G10, but they would wither through time as the phony decision from the committee would find The Paul did nothing wrong. Can you say Tammany Hall?

New Castle Town Supervisor Susan Carpenter was one of the attendees as well as several New Castle residents. Why they were remains an inconsequential mystery. Could it be she believed she might get an education in solutions management or campaign strategies by attending? She said that her town of was faced with the same problems as Greenburgh. As if scripted by The Paul, she too berated ConEd, the Public Service Commission and offered no solutions. If we continue to elect the same people, listen to the same press conferences and never hold their feet even near the flame, we should not expect solutions or different outcomes!

So The Paul has anointed ex-convict Alan Hochberg to chair the do-nothing committee to find fault with others and assist in deflecting attention from The Paul’s illegal, immoral, and ill-conceived actions until the next fiasco rears it’s ugly head from the shadows. Whether it is the Fortress Bible decision ($8 million), the WestHelp debacle ($1.2 million), the Water Department deficit ($4 million), the Dromore Road decision, Cumberland Farms, Brightview Assisted Living Center, Stop and Shop on Rt 119, flooding in Fulton Park along the Bronx River, flooding on the Rt 9A corridor in Elmsford, 400+ new condominiums off of Taxter Road, 400+ new condominiums at Eastview (both adding to the Rt 9A flooding), 20 new McMansions in Tarrytown/Greenburgh across from Kraft Foods and last but certainly not least, the GameOn 365 Sports Bubble with it’s über-contaminated site on Dobbs Ferry Road, The Paul is costing us a fortune. It must stop! 

The meeting for the Citizen’s Committee concluded with little more than finger-pointing and no solutions offered and the promise to discuss it more. The unsuspecting committee will meet, proctoring some ideas gleaned from The Paul’s press releases and have Alan Hochberg dutifully hand them to The Paul, feigning interest. There will be the requisite pomp and circumstance and then the committee will fade into the rising flood waters until the next time. They’ll never provide a solution to any of Mother Nature’s fury, the Town’s inability to help it’s constituents and The Paul’s ineptness with dealing with anything that doesn’t require having someone else do something. The best we can hope for is for The Paul and his Board to resign. The least we can hope for is they step aside and let the residents provide solutions. We can only hope.